It became fascinating to me. A simple hobby of people-watching quickly turned into something else. I swear, there were times where I could feel what some were feeling. Obviously, that’s atrocious, but there were times… It was sort of the same for Ben, sans the this child is fucked up notion, being raised by his grandmother, a woman who busted her ass her entire life and raised her children, thrust back into the working world so late in life to do it all over again with the grandchild her daughter didn’t want but had.
He was alone, I was alone, and then suddenly we had each other, and that’s how it stayed over the years. At one point, I even lived with him and Grandma Betsy when my uncle Marcus was transferred for work, but it didn’t take him long to quit that job and find another because, in all the ways that mattered, I was his daughter. Splitting us apart was the last thing he wanted.
I knew it would be hard for him when I left for college. He was pretty excited when I was forced to stay back for my first year when the only place I could get into was a junior college because my grades were as shit as my attendance.
That’s probably where Ben and I differ the most. He has always been all about school and sports and overachieving academia. He knew at a young age he wanted more in life; he wanted the chance to give his grandma a more comfortable life after seeing how hard she worked and was forced to have the simplest things and sometimes not even those.
Originally, he was supposed to go to junior college with me, stay home and near his grandma, but then he got a call from the coaches here, and next thing you know he was accepted into Daragan State with a full ride.
I cried in happiness and absolute dread because I knew there was no way he could pass that up, not without a savings or penny to his name to help pay for college courses, even at a junior college. He would have had to work endlessly just to cover a couple classes each semester, not to mention play hockey in an old, rundown arena that gets rented out for kids’ birthday parties more often than not.
For a moment, as short-lived as it was, he considered turning it down, but then when Grandma Betsy passed in her sleep not long after our high school graduation, I knew. I was about to lose my best friend to a school halfway across the country.
I’d never worked so hard in school in my life, but I knew I had to get to where he was because I couldn’t do this tiresome, mundane existence without him.
I’m not entirely emo, I’m just uninterested in the reality of day-to-day bullshit, and I may have a codependent bond with my best friend.
My Molly trips, when the outside world flips on its axis and my imagination takes over, make me believe I can see and hear and touch and feel things that don’t exist. It’s like a barrier in my brain breaks when I’m impaired, and suddenly I feel like I’m in my element. Like I’m most “me.”
Fuck me, I’m a toxic train wreck. Why hasn’t this shit worn off yet?
Dropping my chin into my palm, I stare blankly at the professor at the front of the room as he starts talking some bullshit I can’t be bothered to tune in to.
I’m positive the day is about to drag on as boring and uneventful as every other, but then the double doors open at the front of the room and in walks a girl with fiery red hair.
I sit up in my chair, eyes narrowing on the freckle-faced, willowy chick with legs for days. Something sparks in my chest as her lips curve into a small smile, and as if they have a mind of their own, my eyes track her every step with rapt interest.
Suddenly, I want to know what she smells like, feels like. What she tastes like.
The last thought shakes me out of my stupor, but I’m unable to remove the frown from my forehead, and then as if the universe is testing my brand of crazy, the redhead sits in the desk directly beside me.
Not sure how long I stare at her, but suddenly her head snaps toward mine, and she raises a perfectly shaped brow. “Can I help you?”
Now that I get a closer look, I can see the dark circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep.
Did he keep her up all night?
Fuck her right there on the porch after I left? Does he taste as good as he looks?
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
That was a trip. I was trippin’。
I conjured up that entire scene in my head, because of the events of earlier that night.
But why would this chick, whom I have never actually spoken a word to, be a player in my twisted little fantasy rather than it be me on my knees before the drop-dead gorgeous guy?
“Are you seriously just going to stare at me?” she whines, self-consciously running her hands down her hair. It does nothing to hide the fact that she’s at least two days strong on dry shampoo.
“Did you have fun at the Rathe U party last night?” I hear myself ask before I give myself permission to do so and I kind of want to stop myself, especially when she looks at me like I’m crazy.
“What are you talking about? Do I even know you?”
“No.” I frown, facing forward. “You don’t.”
So there it is.
Molly for the win…
Six
Knight
My body is slammed and locked against a thick layer of rubber, and then my feet are off the floor as I’m levitated, my back bowing as I’m hit with a power surge so strong, my every limb screams in pain, the move simulating the feeling of thousands of tiny needles penetrating my skin all at once. I grit my teeth, calling on my own gift, my hands shaking from pure concentration as I work to free it from his control.
The asshole stands twenty yards away, face set in stone, hands thrown out at his sides, as soft gray tethers weave in the air, thickening where his gift touches my skin.
I wiggle my right fingers, and like I knew it would, his attention shifts to the movement, for the shortest of seconds, but it’s long enough for me to break through his concentration.
Throwing my arm out, I hit him in the chest with a gust of wind so hard it knocks the air from his lungs and sends him sliding across the room.
The levitation spell breaks, my body falling the twenty-five feet to the ground, but I land with the grace of a fucking panther and attack with little to no effort.
I jerk my chin left, sending him barreling into a rack of weights, ignoring the loud shouts that pierce the air as thousands of pounds of steel crash all around. I nod to the right, and he flies across the floor, his head bouncing off the giant mirror on impact, glass crashing all around him.
Still, he flies to his feet then, coming full force, and I wait, dodging his swing before spinning around him and knocking him back down.
He’s up as fast as he goes down, and our eyes slam into one another, but before he knows it’s happening, his left arm is outstretched, and the long, sharp shard of glass he unknowingly picked up punctures his skin. He yanks back, splitting himself clean open from his wrist to the fucking bend of his arm.
Blood pours from the giant gash like water from a pressurized pipe, spilling over our shoes and pooling around us.
“Enough!” the trainer booms, his voice supersonic and vibrating my eardrums until my concentration slips.
I blink, stepping back and Silver does the same, eyes snapping to his mangled arm that’s already begun to heal itself. A choked laugh leaves him as my control over him evaporates into nothing, but I don’t stick around for a conversation. We already had one this morning and it left a sour taste in my mouth, so I flip off our trainer when he demands for me to stay, going straight for the fucking showers.